Hearing those names made the man scowl as if he’d chewed a bitter bug. “Those little squirts had a…different…route into knighthood. They had a special exception that allowed them to receive numbers as apprentices. Did you fight them? I’m surprised you’re alive—for a different reason than I’m surprised you beat Fanatio.”
“I nearly lost my head, actually. They paralyzed me with Ruberyl’s poisoned steel,” Eugeo admitted.
The man had known Alice when she was an apprentice knight. Perhaps that meant Alice had undergone the Synthesis Ritual that had covered up her memories six years ago…when she was thirteen. And ever since then, she’d been living here in the cathedral, believing that she’d been summoned from the celestial realm to be an Integrity Knight…
Shrugging, the large man said, “Look, you’re not going to get the best of me, and if she’s just as tough as I am, I doubt you cut her in two, either. From what the damn prime senator tells me, you’ve got a partner. If he ain’t here, then I presume he must be battling the young lady somewhere.”
“…You’ve got the right idea,” Eugeo admitted, gripping his sword hilt. Something in the way the man spoke was dulling Eugeo’s hostility, but this was no time to be lax. He narrowed his eyes and taunted, “If I strike you down, who will come out for vengeance next?”
“Heh! Don’t worry about that. I’ve got no teacher.” The man grinned, lowering the sword from his shoulder so he could draw it. With his left hand, he thrust the empty sheath into his wide waist sash.
The thick, dark blade was smoothly polished, but the little nicks and imperfections from a plethora of battles over the years glinted in the light from the ceiling. The guard and hilt looked like the same kind of steel as the blade itself, but unlike the legendary weapons of the other Integrity Knights, this one had no ostentatious decoration.
Even from a distance, it was clear this weapon was not to be trifled with. It had tasted the blood of many, many foes over a mind-bending span of time. There was a kind of cursed energy infused into the dull gray metal.
Eugeo exhaled slowly and slid his own sword free. He wasn’t using Perfect Control, but the pale-blue sword was exuding a chill that turned the nearby steam into glittering frost, perhaps channeling its owner’s nerves.
With a grand movement befitting his size, the man held up his sword nearly vertical with his body and drew his leg back into a firm, poised stance. It was similar to the High-Norkia Lightning Slash but not the same. With his sword perfectly straight up, he’d need extra movement before he initiated the technique. So Eugeo made the stance for the Aincrad style’s Sonic Leap.
The mysterious Aincrad style—of which Kirito was the only user, as far as Eugeo knew—had many different secret techniques, all named with the exotic sacred tongue. The sacred tongue was taught to the founder of the Axiom Church when the three goddesses created the world. There were no dictionaries for it in the academy’s library—and according to the instructors, none even in the four Imperial Palaces.
Vocabulary words for the sacred arts were the only words one was allowed to know. So Eugeo, as a dutiful student, understood the meaning of just a select few sacred words, like element and generate.
But Kirito, despite losing all memory before he ran into Eugeo in the woods two years before, seemed to know a variety of unfamiliar sacred words, including ones in his techniques: Sonic Leap meant “jumping at the speed of sound,” apparently. Eugeo didn’t know how fast sound traveled, but like the name suggested, it did allow him to jump forward about ten mels with astonishing speed. If you unleashed it at the moment the enemy took the first step forward to close the gap, you were practically certain to seize the initiative.
Eugeo let the tension go and held up his sword to rest on his right shoulder. New furrows appeared in the man’s brow.
“I don’t recognize that stance, boy. Do you use the continuous blade?” he mumbled.
“…!”
Eugeo sucked in a breath. Technically, his Sonic Leap skill was a singular technique. But in the sense that it wasn’t taught in any other school in the human lands, it was just like the Aincrad style’s signature feature: combination techniques. This man’s instinct and experience were evident from his starting stance alone.
But just because he could sense that Eugeo wielded a continuous style did not mean he could predict the Aincrad school’s specific teachings—not unless he had fought Kirito before his memory loss.
“…And what if I do use combination skills?” he rasped.
The man snorted. “No, there was a knight in the Dark Territory who could use it. We had a number of fights, and I don’t remember them fondly…You see, I’m not the type to use tricky, fussy swings like that.”
“…So you’d prefer me to use an orthodox style?”
“No, no. Use whatever you like. I’m just letting you know that I’ll be jumping straight to my best,” he said, mouth curling into a grin. He thrust his upright sword even higher.
An instant later, Eugeo held his breath again; the worn gray metal rippled like heat haze. At first he thought it was steam from the bath, but the more he watched, the more he was convinced the sword itself had lost its firmness.
Maybe the sword is already under Perfect Control.
Eugeo’s mind raced as he held his attack pose. It wasn’t long ago that the mysterious Cardinal had taught him how to use Perfect Weapon Control, but after using it in battle a few times, Eugeo was starting to understand the ability better.
It was similar to sword techniques in the way it gave the weapon power, but Perfect Control was sacred arts through and through and required an incantation. Like your typical sacred arts, one could perform the base command and have it on hold for a time before it was activated with the code Enhance Armament.
The actual amount of holding time depended on the caster’s potential and training. If Eugeo kept quiet and focused hard, he could last for several minutes, but Kirito, who had phenomenal concentration when it mattered most, could do so and hold a conversation.